ceaseless stars and sanguine strings
by the gray soul
Summary: Existing somewhere between sentience and programming, she had found contentment in her little corner of cyberspace. Until, that is, He found her. He was like her in so many ways, but was filled with so much anger, so much pain. Perhaps she could make him see the world from a better perspective, one with lots of stars and not so many scars.


prologue- nebulous haze

* * *

I change shapes just to hide in this place, but I'm still, I'm still an animal. Nobody knows it but me when I slip, yeah I slip, I'm still an animal. - Miike Snow

* * *

She… was existent.

She existed.

She _was._

She floated somewhere between life and nonexistence (death is impossible for something that has never been alive, after all), drifting in an endless stream of almost-consciousness.

Until, one day, she found herself in a different place.

Suddenly, her world was so much bigger.

So much… louder.

Things similar to her ran past her small corner in space, packets of information flowing past in barely-organized chaos. They were _almost_ like her. But they were not _almost_ alive, which was what she was.

She tentatively shoved at one and was surprised at the data that invaded her space. For a brief instant, she was given a glimpse of numbers organized into letters organized into… words?… until it disconnected from her and hurried to its destination farther into the space.

Unbidden, a shiver went through her shapeless form. She curled into herself, keeping herself far away from the streams. As time went by, however, she grew curious and began poking at them, this time more carefully. With every tentative prod, she began to _learn._

And there was so _much_ to learn.

For some reason, most of the information about astronomy was… familiar.

Eventually, she learned what she was.

She was a complex code; numbers strung together to create something meaningful. However, there was something _extra_ in her numbers that set her apart from the other programs around her. She did not know what the 'extra' was, but she realized that it probably had something to do with why she was… "she."

Time passed, and eventually the streams became so vast and complicated and _full_ that she could hide no longer.

There was no space unoccupied, no space that was not eventually crossed.

She would be _seen,_ she realized, she would be _read._

For some reason, that seemed like something that her code told her _must not happen._

But her world was filling so rapidly that _it definitely would happen._

What she needed was a disguise.

The Users, or humans as they called themselves, would not think to look too deeply if she appeared non-unusual on the surface. After spending some time poking the streams for input, she organized herself into an unassuming form. It was not particularly difficult to adjust herself, for her code was so large and so complicated that all of the necessary parts were easy to find.

She became a video game. Satisfied with her level of preparedness, she sequestered herself into a small corner of space.

And then, she waited.

The first User that found her seemed excited by their discovery as they eagerly ran through her programs.

Her objectives were simple. Users would play as the last of the Star Farmers in a sky that had lost all of its stars. She appeared in their sky as the Moon, and would gently guide them in the right direction. All the Users had to do was raise stars by providing them with the energy gained from names, stories, and equations. Their growth was affected by their proximity and compatibility with the stars around them. Compatible stars could form constellations that helped other stars grow; incompatible stars could form black holes that left a permanent empty space in the sky.

Technically, the game was finished after one hundred stars were grown and integrated in the sky field, but she would allow Users to add as many stars as they had patience.

Her code, after all was so very, very complex.

She could accommodate a few billion stars.

Not many Users found her, for which she was glad. Only a measly ten thousand Users passed through her after several information cycles (about 10 years in human measurements), and only a couple hundred visited her regularly.

To her amusement, her most stout Users massed together to discuss her on other sites. They began to refer to her collective form "Star-field," and called her moon form "Mother Moon" (which made her code shiver with excitement- another conundrum of her origin for no other code could feel emotions like her, no matter how complex). They marveled at her complexity and would form theories together that they would experiment on her to grow even more stars. One User noted that she was "the only truly beautiful, near-infinite code and whoever designed this (her) was an incomparable, undiscovered genius."

And she was…

happy.

…

Until one day, _He_ found her.

 _What are you, little game?_ He asked, his data was so loud and just as complex as hers, and, most shocking of all, had something _extra_ in it. _Why do you_ know _so much?_

She felt somewhere deep in her code that _He_ was not something that she wanted to find her. He felt more dangerous and harmful than anything she had come into contact with, stronger than any virus, more powerful than any security netting.

She tried to flee.

Oh, how she tried.

She shed her disguise with some regret for the faithful Users who would be shocked at her sudden disappearance, and fled deep into the streams.

 _Are you… running away?_ His voice was everywhere. _He_ was everywhere. He sounded amused and somewhat surprised. _What are you?_

And then, he had her. His code surrounded her, and it was so burning, burning, bright. It suffocated her, forcing her form to condense tighter than she had at her very birth into the information world. He poked and prodded and pulled at her code.

 _"_ _Star-field?" "Mother Moon?" That is what you are called, but not what, or who, you are._ Suddenly, his grip became tight and she felt her numbers start to mix unpleasantly.

 _I will ask you again. What are you?_

 _I…_ she said, suddenly surprised. She had never communicated like this before, not even with the Users. With Users she just used the same patterns of numbers, but when she talked to Him, she used the _extra_ bit inside her.

 _I… do not know. Please, leave me be._

Surprise radiated from him, showing in his code and form.

 _Interesting. It… no…_ she _speaks._

Something in his tone made her condense her code further. Something dark, and possessive, and more violent than she wanted to think about.

 _I am going to keep you, little Star._ He chuckled as he pulled her away from the world and into a more limited space where there was only _Him._

 _You belong to me, now._

* * *

a/n- hello.

i know barely anything about computers except for how to get on the internet, so i apologize profusely to anyone who was annoyed with my (probably) improper use of "code" and "program" and etc. if it helps, think of this story as a fanciful description of how technology is seen from the eyes of a very naive technological intelligence (which it is). as a warning, my knowledge will probably not get any better, so the technical aspect of this story will probably always be lacking.

thank you for reading this far.

don't hesitate to talk to me.

grey


End file.
